For Books’ Sake

Championing writing by women

Arthur C Clarke Awards Releases Separate All-Women Nominations List

20th Jan 2014

After last year's disappointing all-male shortlist, organisers look to highlight women in Sci-Fi in 2014.

In a bid to remind voters – and themselves – that women Sci-Fi writers also exist, organisers of this year’s Arthur C Clarke Awards have published a list of 33 nominations ahead of the official shortlist, all of them written by women.

The full list of entries is normally made public in April, just before the announcement of the shortlist, but in a break with tradition and in response to criticism of 2013’s sausage-fest, this year the list will be delivered in two parts, as awards director Tom Hunter explains:

“This year we’ve chosen to do this in two parts, first releasing this list of the 33 female authors submitted for the prize, which we hope will be a positive contribution towards further raising the profile of women writers of science fiction in the UK and beyond.”

While there’s no certainty that all, or any, of the 33 books mentioned will make it onto the shortlist, organisers seem hopeful that showcasing women writers earlier in the process will lead to a more balanced profile of the genders in Sci-Fi fiction, and a more considered vote when it comes to choosing a winner.

Speaking to the Guardian last year on the subject, Awards panel member Liz Williams blamed the unequal shortlist on a lack of quality submissions by women. With authors and novels such as Margaret Atwood‘s MaddAddam, Lauren Beukes‘ The Shining Girls and Alexia Casale‘s The Bone Dragon on this year’s nominations, let’s hope that no such excuses are possible this time.